Dana Point Harbor To Get A $300M Makeover

The efforts to revitalize the nearly five-decade-old Dana Point Harbor cleared a major hurdle last week.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved entering into a public-private partnership with Dana Point Harbor Partners LLC for the firm to develop, operate and manage the Dana Point Harbor for 66 years.

Dana Point Harbor Partners LLC is a collection of three powerhouse Orange County-based commercial real estate companies — R.D. Olson Development, Bellwether Financial and Burnham Ward Properties.

Each will be responsible for a section of the estimated $337M mixed-use makeover that includes rehabbing and modernizing existing buildings, building a new parking structure, adding more retail and developing a couple of hotels.

Dana Point Harbor Partners now enters into an option period of 90 to 120 days to agree or terminate the deal.

“We’ve come a long way over the last 20 years, and now it’s time to really move things forward,” Supervisor Lisa Bartlett said. “They are going to create a fantastic harbor that will take us well into the future.”

Built in 1968 and developed in the early 1970s by what is now Orange County Parks, Dana Point Harbor’s infrastructure has deteriorated over time and requires modernization, according to a county staff report.

In 1997, the board of supervisors created a task force to revitalize and rehab the waterfront property. But over the past decades, the project lingered until 2016 when the county began accepting statements of qualifications to renovate the harbor.

Under the tentative agreement with Dana Point Harbor Partners, the revitalization of Dana Point Harbor will include 116K SF of commercial mixed-use. The project has 77K SF of restaurants and outdoor dining, 32K SF of retail and a market or food hall, a 9K SF surf museum, 2K SF of marine-related retail and 5,600 SF of office space. The plan also calls for a 2,500-space parking structure and at least one hotel.

The project is slated to start construction in June.